m known, it appears, even to that
devilish name of mine!"

Everybody laughed.

"After all," he said, more soberly, "it's a gipsy's trade to know
everybody and everything. _Tiens!_" He slapped a goldpiece on the
table. "A kiss apiece against a louis that you don't know my comrade's
name and nation!"

The girl called Nini laughed:

"We're quite willing to kiss you, Prince Erlik, but a _louis d'or_ is
not a copper penny. And your comrade is American and his name is
Tchames."

"James!" exclaimed Sengoun.

"I said so--Tchames."

"What else?"

"Nilan."

"Neeland?"

"I said so."

Sengoun placed the goldpiece in Nini's hand and looked at Neeland with
an uncomfortable laugh.

"I ought to know a gipsy, but they always astonish me, these Tziganes.
Tell us some more, Nini----" He beckoned a waiter and pointed
indignantly at the empty goblets.

The girls, resting their elbows on the tables, framed their faces with
slim and dusky hands, and gazed at Sengoun out of humorous,
half-veiled eyes.

"What do you wish to know, Prince Erlik?" they asked mockingly.

"Well, for example, is my country really mobilising?"

"Since the twenty-fifth."

"_Tiens!_ And old Papa Kaiser and the Clown Prince Footit--what do
they say to that?"

"It must be stopped."

"What! _Sang dieu!_ We must stop mobilising against the Austrians?
But we are not going to stop, you know, while Francis Joseph continues
to pull faces at poor old Servian Peter!"

Neeland said:

"The evening paper has it that Austria is more reasonable and that the
Servian affair can be arranged. There will be no war," he added
confidently.

"There will be war," remarked Nini with a shrug of her bare, brown
shoulders over which her hair and her gilded sequins fell in a bright
mass.

"Why?" asked Neeland, smiling.

"Why? Because, for one thing, you have brought war into Europe!"

"Come, now! No mystery!" said Sengoun gaily. "Explain how my comrade
has brought war into Europe, you little fraud!"

Nini looked at Neeland:

"What else except papers was in the box you lost?" she asked coolly.

Neeland, very red and uncomfortable, gazed back at the girl without
replying; and she laughed at him, showing her white teeth.

"You brought the Yellow Devil into Europe, M'sieu Nilan! Erlik, the
Yellow Demon. When he travels there is unrest. Where he rests there is
war!"

"You're very clever," retorted Neeland, quite out of countenance.

"Yes, we are," said Fifi